68- The Michigan Daily - SPORTSTuesday - January 21, 1997
SWIMMING
Allsmiles? RCadsnseven ater loss to Georgia.
By Josh Kleinbaum
Daily Sports Writer
When a team gets blown out in its home swim-
ming pool, you don't expect to find its coach smil-
ing. But after Georgia did just that to the Michigan
women's swimming team, winning 172-130, on
Saturday, Michigan coach Jim Richardson was
beaming, with a grin stretching from ear to ear.
"1 love where we are right now," Richardson
said, although his team has lost three straight
meets. "I can't think of a year in the 12 years I've
been at Michigan where I felt better about where
we are than I do right now."
But the meet wasn't all smiles for the
Wolverines (3-0 Big Ten, 4-3 overall). No. 3
Georgia (6-0 overall) started out strong and never
looked back. The Bulldogs took both first and sec-
ond place in the 200-yard medley relay, then first
place in the 1,650 distance swim, jumping out to a
27-9 lead.
The fifth-ranked Wolverines only won three
events the entire meet, two of which were won by
freshman Shannon Shakespeare. Shakespeare
took first place in the 200 free with an automatic
NCAA qualifying time of 1:48.29 and won the
200 individual medley. Shakespeare also finished.
second in the 100 free and was on the 200 free
relay team that took first place.
"I was pretty tired in Berkeley and Stanford,"
Shakespeare said of last weekend's meets, "and I
swam a little better this weekend."
Junior Kerri Hale also swam well for the
Wolverines, finishing second in the 1,650 distance
swim with a time of 14:44.46, her best mid-season
time for that event.
Senior Jodi Navta had a strong meet as well,
finishing second in the 100 and 200 breaststroke
and the 200 individual medley.
Georgia had a very balanced attack against the
Wolverines, with four different swimmers finish-
ing with two first-place finishes each.
Kristy Kowal won both the 100 and 200 breast-
stroke events, beating out Navta by considerable
margins in both. Her 100 time of 1:02.33 was
good enough for an automatic NCAA qualifica-
tion.
Freshman Courtney Shealey finished first in
both the 50 and the 100 free, beating out the
Wolverines in two of their strongest events.
Amanda Atkins, a sophomore, took first place
in the 100 and 200 backstroke, earning an NCAA
consideration time in both events.
Sophomore Julie Varozza won both distance
swims, the 1,650 and the 500, despite strong per-
formances from Hale.
"Georgia is wonderful," Richardson said. "They
remind me a lot of us two years ago. They're two-
deep in pretty much every event, they've got a
well-balanced team from distance free all the way
down to the sprints. Georgia can be exceptional
this year.
"I knew that Georgia had our number across the
board event by event. I was more concerned about
how we would swim this week versus how we
swam last week."
And there was a marked improvement from the
losses to Stanford and California last week to the
Georgia meet, as most Wolverines improved their
times considerably.
"We showed a little bit of life today,"
Richardson said. "We got back to swimming our
normal dual-meet times, but we're more fatigued
than normal."
The Wolverines are at a turning point in the sea-
son. They have suffered three straight losses, and
are trying to rebound.
"We're the type of team that understands what
we have to do in order to be there in the end,"
Shakespeare said."I don't think it will affect us in
a negative way."
"The big thing you have to worry about w% an
you go through what we went through for thega)t
two weeks is confidence,' Richardson said. "Are
you confident enough in your ability to train hard
and to give up looking good against Stanford==tr
Georgia, knowing that you're two months Sv4'
from your major competition?"
Richardson decided that he is confident enoug
in his team, and the Wolverines have been trainin
hard for the NCAA championships, which will be
held at the end of March. The Wolverines spent
two weeks in California on a training trip and are
still fatigued.
"You could tell (that we were fatigued) in our
races because we couldn't get out," Richardson
said. "From off the blocks, we weren't real qgift,
and we couldn't get out"
The Wolverines now have two weeks to tfu-
perate for their next meet, when Notre Dame and
Eastern Michigan visit on Feb. 1. *
Regular season just a warmup, Blue
trains right through despite losses
gkwAp %ft"n AL
By Fred Uink
Daily Sports Writer
What's wrong with the Michigan
women's swimming team?
After a strong start to the season, the
fifth-ranked Wolverines have lost succes-
sive meets to No. 1 Stanford, No. 15
California and No. 3 Georgia.
According to Michigan head coach Jim
Richardson, everything is fine.
"People will look at how we swam last
week, and they'll look at the score, and go
'What's wrong with Michigan?"'
Richardson said. "Absolutely nothing. This
is a great team. That sounds funny because
you're slow and you're tired. Yeah, that's
exacly where we need to be."
gimply put, Richardson isn't concerned
about the losses because winning regular-
season meets is not tremendously impor-
tant.
Success is measured by the team's perfor-
mance in the Big Ten and NCAA champi-
onships at the end of the season.
Consequently, the important thing for the
Wolverines is to qualify swimmers for the
NCAA championships in March.
"This sport is very much like the NCAA
basketball tournament. If you're in, you're
in, and then anything can happen,"
Richardson said.
Because the Wolverines have already
qualified nine swimmers for the NCAA
championships, they can afford to train
hard now without worrying that slow times
resulting from fatigue will keep them out of
the NCAAs.
Michigan's recent difficulties can be
attributed to the effects of endurance train-
ing, which the Wolverines hope will pay off
at the end of the season.
"When you pay the kind of price we did,
you know you're not racing to your maxi-
mum potential because of fatigue,"
Richardson said.
After spending the last two weeks of the
winter break training in California, 'h
fatigued Wolverines were no match
Stanford or California. A week after return-
ing home, the swimmers had recovered
somewhat, but the effect of the training was
still apparent.
In the 200-yard freestyle, Michigan
swimmer Shannon Shakespeare swam more
than three seconds faster than she had'last
week against California, while swinimier
Talor Bendel cut four seconds off her titie.
Despite their recent struggles,
Richardson believes the team will be
good shape if the swimmers continue'
work hard despite the losses. By sacrific-
ing now, Richardson hopes the Wolvernies
will be swimming fast times at the NCAAs
in March.
"I think they've paid the kind of pace
where if the coach isn't too stupid in- the
next two months, they can swim consider-
ably faster than they've every swd'm
before," Richardson said.
The women's swimming and diving team isn't winning many meets now, but nobody is concemed. The
Wolverines hope their hard work will be evident in March when they head to the NCAA championships.
U U
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TANNING
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Men beat 3 of 5 topi
opponents at Classic
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By BJ. Luria
Daily Sports Writer
This weekend's Dallas Morning
News Classic brought together the
best of the best in men's swimming
and diving. And once again, Michigan
proved that it belongs in the elite of
the NCAA.
The sixth-ranked Wolverines swam
well enough to capture third place in
the Classic, bested only by No. 2
Tennessee and No. 1 Stanford. The
two-day event was attended by the top
six teams from the 1996 NCAA
championships. The Wolverines fin-
ished ahead of No. 3 Texas, No. 17
Southern Methodist and No. 4
Auburn.
The Wolverines enjoyed the oppor-
tunity to face the five NCAA swim-
ming powerhouses.
"It was a racer's delight," Michigan
coach Jon Urbanchek said. "(The
swimmers) got to go one-on-one with
some of the best swimmers."
The Wolverines were paced by
senior captain John Piersma, who won
the 200-yard freestyle as well as the
500 free.
Sophomore Tom Malchow contin-
ued his dominance in the 200 butter-
fly. He won the race in 1:4a6.62, more
than two seconds ahead of his closest
competitor.
Michigan was hurt by the Classic's
emphasis on sprints and other short
races. The Wolverines' strength is in
the medium-to-long distance events,
which were not a large part of the
competition. Despite the disadvan-
tage, the Wolverines managed to per-
form above and beyond expectations.
"We did better than we thought we
would," Urbanchek said. "We had a
great time."
The Classic is unique in its format
in that each team is allowed to bring
eight swimmers and a diver. this
aspect of the competition benefte6
the Wolverines. W
"We are a little weak in dept1*'
Urbanchek said. "But with the top
eight swimmers, we are up there with
any team. This format suited us."°Z
In the 800-yard freestyle relay -- an
event in which the Wolverines.-re
four-time defending NCAA national
champions - the team of MalkhiW,
Piersma, senior Chris Rumley" dnd
freshman Mike McWha woir1
6:41.38.
The other winner for Michigan Was
junior Derya Buyukuncu in the 1TO
butterfly.
Next up for the Wolverines" aire
Purdue Friday and Indiana Satuidy.
The Hoosiers have beaten Michigan
twice in the past 15 years, and are4hb
only Big Ten team to defeat, the
Wolverines in a duel meet during-that
time period. It is a meet that coac
Urbanchek does not want to lose. 9
"Let's hope that history (of the-two
losses) does not repeat itsef,"
Urbanchek said.
Unfortunately for the Wolverines,'
health will be a major concern for tiis
weekend's meets. Eight out of th&'2l
swimmers have been stricken witl the
flu and were unable to practice yester-
day. If the Wolverines hope to avert
their third Big Ten loss dpj
Urbanchek's tenure at Michigan,.th
will have to recover their health.'Of
course, this sickness could have been
avoided if they had listened to their:
coach.
"They should have all gotten their'
flu shot in October," Urbanchek sid.
"Then we could have avoided a,*"of
this."
Apparently, he knows best.
FILErUT /Ua~y
The blue tankers took their marks this weekend in Texas at the Dallas Moming
Daily Classic. The Wolverines swam strongly against the nation's best teams.
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